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| Shame! J&K again tops country’s corruption chart | | | Early Times Reporter
Jammu | Aug 20
Four years back a survey conducted by an internationally reputed organization placed Jammu and Kashmir at number two among the most corrupt states of the country. This gave a cause of action to the then Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and the campaign was more vigorously followed by his successor Ghulam Nabi Azad who declared rooting out corruption from Jammu and Kashmir as his foremost agenda of governance.
Four years down the line and two Chief Minister scaring every public employee with their overreaching arm of the State Vigilance Organization and the State Accountability Commission, Jammu and Kashmir has once again topped the list of corrupt states. If Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and Ghulam Nabi Azad were here to face the public, they would have certainly found it difficult to answer their claims as the Transparency International has once again declared Jammu and Kashmir as one of most corrupt states in India. Infact, in its latest survey for 2008, the Transparency International has declared Jammu and Kashmir as a state with alarming rate of corruption. Interestingly, sampling has been done from the home districts of the heroes of anti-corruption campaign –Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and Ghulam Nabi Azad.
When Transparency International in association with New Delhi based Center for Media Studies, released its report for the year 2004, the public conscious in Jammu and Kashmir was shocked to find the state as second most corrupt in the country. Therefore, right thinking persons rallied behind Mufti and then Azad in their much touted but apparently hollow war against corruption. At many placed and among various sections of society Mufti and Azad got hero’s status for their publicly declared war against corruption. Every one feeling as victim of corrupt system where something has to be shelled out for any basic public service saw a messiah in Mufti and Azad (more particularly in Azad who hardly spoke about anything else than corruption).
The Transparency International has released its report for the year 2008. After careful examination of the report, EARLY TIMES has obtained an assessment that corruption has increased manifold since 2004 instead of ebbing as claimed by the two former Chief Ministers. Azad, it may be mentioned here, had declared his war against corruption as main agenda of the governance right from the day one when he took over as Chief Minister in November 2005. He put in place one of the most stringent anti-corruption laws applicable anywhere in the world and would always claim that several European countries have approached him for the draft legislation as they wanted to enact a similar law in their countries.
In the following months raids were conducted at the residence of some lower rung officials and their properties were attached. The menace of corruption, however, could not be removed from the public life. Now, the Transparency International, one of the most credible organizations world, over has pinned the balloons of accountability and transparency claimed by the leaders of the erstwhile coalition government when they have termed Jammu and Kashmir as a state with alarming rate of corruption.
The only solace or face saving for Jammu and Kashmir in the latest survey is that the Transparency International this time has not rated states by numbers. Instead the states have been categorized by sizes –big and small –and level of corruption has been classified by indicators –alarming, very high, high and moderate. Since the names of the states have been arranged in alphabetical order, therefore, Jammu and Kashmir shares the “alarming corruption honours” with four other states –Assam, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Utter Pradesh.
Interestingly, the districts of Jammu and Kashmir selected by the Transparency International for sampling are those where there should not have been any corruption –if the campaign of Mufti and Azad was anything to go by. The sample districts are Doda (home districts of former Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad), Anantnag (home district of former Chief Minister of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed) and Srinagar (the Summer Capital City). |
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